TV Quality Going Down (rant)

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pixelated

Well-known member
So, is it just me or have others noticed the audio quality of recent TV fare is getting ever worse?

The particular one that's set me off tonight is a current CBS offering called "The Mentalist". It's typical mindless foof drama but one I didn't really mind, except the audio quality s__ks SO BAD that it's virtually unwatchable. I mean, its backup and replay over and over to catch the dialogue. How the ___ does crap like this ever make the screen?

To be totally fair, the actors are not doing the sound guy any favors whatsoever. Between all the head swings, outright reversals and general mumbling they all need to be seriously beat with a boompole. It's like they've never even seen a microphone. It's just totally obvious sound receives absolutely no respect on this set.

I'm picking heavily on this one show as being an excellent illustration of sound gone bad, but they just seem to be at the forefront of a lot of newer material making the cut with questionable to outright horrible production values. I'm sorta expecting the standard budget excuse but I'm finding it hard to believe good sound costs that much more.

Any pros out there with any insight as to what's going on? Is this a trend or just an aberration? Are we that hard up for content that stuff like this makes prime time?
 
have you seen any of the discovery channels' recent shows? christ stereo and 480i with a steadicam would be a blessing!
 
pixelated said:
So, is it just me or have others noticed the audio quality of recent TV fare is getting ever worse?
Click to expand...

Stopped watching TV for the most part when the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was canceled by CBS, and Star Trek canceled by NBC...

Then on the music front, Jimmy, Janice, and Jim, all dead within the space of a couple of years ushered in an era of ulgy music, only enjoyable by people who liked polyesters...

Apparently my lack of viewership has had no effect on TV... on the other hand, rock in certain genres has made a comeback in the last 15 years or so...
 
pixelated said:
The particular one that's set me off tonight is a current CBS offering called "The Mentalist". It's typical mindless foof drama but one I didn't really mind, except the audio quality s__ks SO BAD that it's virtually unwatchable. I mean, its backup and replay over and over to catch the dialogue. How the ___ does crap like this ever make the screen?
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that your local network affiliate and/or cable provider can destroy things for your viewing pleasure. Are you watching on an HD set, on an HD feed, or were you watching the SD feed? Surround or stereo?

The down-conversion from 5.1 surround to stereo is often botched, leaving the dialog channel buried a little more in the mix than it should be. And many local affiliates can't pass 5.1 on to the viewer and thus have to send stereo audio out the door. While the networks do crank these shows out relatively quickly (as compared to, say, a big-screen release) and do sacrifice some quality at times, a lot of the viewing and listening troubles come not from the network but from the local carrier.
 
C2V said:
Keep in mind that your local network affiliate and/or cable provider can destroy things for your viewing pleasure. Are you watching on an HD set, on an HD feed, or were you watching the SD feed? Surround or stereo?

The down-conversion from 5.1 surround to stereo is often botched, leaving the dialog channel buried a little more in the mix than it should be. And many local affiliates can't pass 5.1 on to the viewer and thus have to send stereo audio out the door. While the networks do crank these shows out relatively quickly (as compared to, say, a big-screen release) and do sacrifice some quality at times, a lot of the viewing and listening troubles come not from the network but from the local carrier.
Click to expand...


Very interesting ! Things I did not know. I'm just curious enough to pursue this with the local cable provider. I'll post their response . . .

Thanks !!
 
It´s a mess!

And it´s not only sound but picture quality also.
You shoot in 1080p uncompressed or RED RAW and the audience ends up with a long GOP, highly compressed SD image, where half the vertical resolution is missing because of the crappy deinterlacer in the TV set, scaled up again to 16:10,3645 on a TFT panel that only can display 6 bit of color resolution.

Frank
 
if some shows have higher quality, were other shows on the same channel have less quality, then it's the shows problem.(if it looks like reality tv, or sounds like bad youtube, it's because it's bad)

if it was originally good, it will look and sound good even on youtube.
 
pixelated said:
So, is it just me or have others noticed the audio quality of recent TV fare is getting ever worse?
Click to expand...

Have you only just noticed?

It's been going downhill for years - budget cuts - sound being done by the researcher or cameraman instead of a professional sound recordist, etc.....

I watch less and less TV nowadays because of the downward trend in quality.
 
Well Ive never seen the show but just decided to watch a clip on hulu.
The 5 min clip I watched, while you could understand it, wasn't an "attractive" sound.
Every scene I saw was totally wires rather than a boom.
You can tell they are shooting wide and tight at the same time boning the sound department.
Even the wardrobe was a nightmare.

Very sad these days but this is 100% the norm..
wire everyone and use a boom only when its possible which is rare.
This is the main reason I usually try to stay away from episodic tv. Just not worth being miserable but of course someone out there is
going to need to feed his family so they just try to do as good of a job and move on.


I don't blame the sound dept for something like this. It's just another product that the producers need to get out the door quickly.
 
Just to defend a bit an industry that I'm not making any $$$ on, some of the best "films" I've seen are cable TV. The WIRE, Sex in the City, Six Feet Under, Treme, Deadwood, Dexter. So broadcast may be dyeing, actually I think it will be replaced by online.
 
I really think it's the local stations. I produce a lot of TV ads, and watch the channels to see them. Locally on ABC the show "Lost" gets raped regularly. I even report back to the station and they try to change it. Somebody along the chain doesn't know their job and they do different things for different shows too. That's on local SuddenLink cable, but it's fed from a local station in Redding Ca. All my Dish Network channels sound great by comparison, though the SD shows ain't so hot sometimes, but that's again channel specific usually. When I view web versions of shows, they usually sound fine compared to the local affiliates. The only way to tell for sure how bad the show was made is to watch the DVD.

It's really hard to pinpoint where it all goes to s*%t without someone who can explain the entire signal path from delivered show to television.
 
Another forum devoted to sound had a discussion of Lost and also mentioned some episides of Southland. On Lost they mentioned they have very good pros working hard to do the best job possible on sound. Some of the actors refuse to do ADR ever and and many of the locations and setups are very difficult for sound (producers choice). Southland had a director who said he did not want to see a boom. I've watched both shows and it really doesn't bother me as long as the story is engaging. Most producers believe rightly or wrongly that they can get it "acceptable" in post and if sound was number one priority they would not make their day.
 
What really makes me cringe is the terrible use of audio compression in broadcast. Try watching (and LISTENING) to FUSE TV. You cannot get a proper volume level because the compressors are pumping so hard. They've aired some good music programs, and then when I try to watch, the audio is SOO BAD I can't stand it and change channels.
 
You say it's going downhill - I'm just curious from what time frame you're talking? As a lot of shows from the 80s into the mid and even late 90s, for example, have pretty terrible sound. I think the typical prime time show now has better quality audio than a large majority of shows from the 50s to the late 80s.

I don't disagree that sound is often treated poorly on TV shows, I just haven't noticed it getting worse lately is all.
 
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